


The night is darkening round me

by Lunarflare14



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Brainwashing, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1542236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarflare14/pseuds/Lunarflare14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never questioned the world he had come to know as his existence. It simply was how it was and he felt nothing about it. He was a tool, the sword arm of Hydra, a shadow and nothing more.</p><p>That's when the man on the bridge ruined him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The night is darkening round me

Winter Soldier

It’s the only name he’s ever known. Most days it barely registers as a name at all. Once, he asked his masters if he had a name. They said names are for people. He is a weapon. But his enemies name him. It’s not a true name but it’s more than he’s ever had.

He wonders what that says about his enemies. That they see him as more a person then the ones he serves. They must be weak.

His life has been short, but he’s beginning to suspect that he just doesn’t remember.

He doesn’t think far beyond the mission. The assignment. Kill these people, don’t kill those people, the next step, the next five, ten, fifteen steps to the mission's end.

Then there’s the man who can match his strength.

His mask falls away and the target freezes. Something passes through the target’s eyes that gives him pause. Something he’s never seen before. Recognition.

“Bucky?”

Everything pauses in that moment. Their fight, the battle. Everything stands still and he stares at the—at the man on the bridge.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” They’re the first words that feel like his own, like they belong to him, like the thought is in him and not placed there by someone else.

He realizes sometime later he said 'who'.

Because Bucky was a name. He knew so few things that he wasn’t explicitly told. But Bucky was a ‘who’.

The man on the bridge haunts his thoughts. He gets these headaches, accompanied by flashes of… of something. A lot of them have the man on the bridge but he doesn’t feel attached to them. They belong to someone else.

“The man on the bridge.”

Pierce starts. Weapons do not talk unprompted. They do not ask questions of their own, only about the mission. It’s not in their purpose. He’s beginning to think he was once more than that.

“Who was he?”

Pierce looks him over carefully. He’s looking for cracks. His weapon isn’t working as it should.

“You met him earlier this week on assignment.” The words are careful. Hollow. Pierce knows more and isn’t telling. He has never thought or cared if his masters lied.

He cares now.

“I knew him.” It’s an accusation as much as it is a statement of fact. Memories come up that feel _right_. They were of war and of poverty. But the man on the bridge was there, and smiling at him. Something warm and tight erupts in his chest. Something he’s never felt before. Pierce is going into a speech about his work. He’s shaped the century, the world. But that wasn’t his will, it was Hydra’s. He doesn’t find himself able to care. Tomorrow he needs to kill the man on the bridge and he pleads. “But I knew him.”

He thinks he had a life once. It’s the first time he wonders about it.

He thinks he was a person and the man on the bridge—

The man on the bridge knew him then.

The bit is put between his teeth and they lean him back. The split second before they flip the switch he knows they’ve done this before. So many times. He doesn’t remember so much as he senses it.

He knows what Pierce is going to do. Pierce is going to steal the memories from him and for the first time something in him bulks. He wants to keep them. They’re the only thing that he ever wanted for himself, the only thing he can call his own, and he hopes.

He hopes he’ll keep them. That he was a person. But mostly he hopes that the man on the bridge will have the strength and the mercy to put him out of his misery. Because he realizes that has been his existence.

Misery.

Then everything fades to darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Emily Bronte's "Spellbound" and if the Winter Soldier ever had a poem it was that poem.
> 
> Spellbound
> 
> by Emily Brontë 
> 
> The night is darkening round me,  
> The wild winds coldly blow;  
> But a tyrant spell has bound me  
> And I cannot, cannot go.
> 
> The giant trees are bending  
> Their bare boughs weighed with snow.  
> And the storm is fast descending,  
> And yet I cannot go.
> 
> Clouds beyond clouds above me,  
> Wastes beyond wastes below;  
> But nothing drear can move me;  
> I will not, cannot go.


End file.
